


Survivorhood

by sheswanderlust



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Angst, Loss, Mentions of Drowning, Mourning, Panic Attacks, mentions of crashes, mentions of disordered eating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 09:40:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20544032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheswanderlust/pseuds/sheswanderlust
Summary: Today there was no water in his lungs, yet he felt the same paralyzing terror, the same detachment from everything around him.He waited for strong arms reaching for him. No one came.





	Survivorhood

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so, a few words.  
This story is my way to cope with, well, the events of last week. It's my first attempt to write about these characters and in this fandom. It's unbetaed and given that English is not my first language and it's been ages since I last used it to write a story you may find some mistakes.  
As I said in the warnings it's definitely angst and deals with delicate themes. 
> 
> Oh, the HANS-device I mention is the Head And Neck Support device drivers use. The one Charles has been using since 2014 is a present that Jules gave him when he first moved from karts to single-seaters, so that's a true story. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't know anyone, I don't suggest anything about the people mentioned, nothing is true, it's all my fantasy.

Once, when he was a child, Charles almost drowned.

He doesn’t remember much about the circumstances, probably a day spent at the beach in Saint Tropez with Lorenzo and Jules, him and Tom trotting behind their older brothers like every child about their age would do. He could already swim, it’s impossible not to when you’re born and bred on the French Riviera, but he must have wandered too far in the sea, ignoring the waves too high and strong for him. What he does remember vividly is the sudden silence, the water burning in his lungs, and that terrifying feeling, like someone was pushing him underwater again and again. He remembers how he tried with all his strength to come up and cry for help, only to fail again and again; how he slowly felt his senses weakening, exhaustion winning against terror; and then, finally, how the strong arms of Jules had reached for him. He remembers the air suddenly filling his lungs in an almost painful way, the summer sun blinding in his eyes, noises coming back around him, the panicked voices of Lorenzo and Jules repeatedly calling his name.

Today there was no water in his lungs, yet he felt the same paralyzing terror, the same detachment from everything around him.

He waited for strong arms reaching for him. No one came.

«Charles»

It took a couple of seconds for him to feel Andrea’s hand on his arm. He looked up, meeting the worried eyes of his personal trainer. He opened his mouth, the customary _sto bene_ already on the tip of his tongue, yet his vocal chords refused to speak. He averted his eyes, Andrea’s hand squeezing his arm a bit stronger, trying to ground him and soothe him at the same time. _Please don’t, please don’t or I’ll break down_, Charles thought at that spontaneous sign of affection and concern, panic rising in his throat, gripping his lungs and pushing the air out of them.

«Try to eat something»

The very thought of food made him nauseous. He slowly shook his head and closed his eyes. _Calm down calm down calm down Charles_. He heard Andrea sigh, then his trainer’s hand on the back of his neck. He felt the burning need to lean in, to give in and give up, yet he resisted. He was barely keeping it together, opening up was not an option. He tried to fight back the tears and the water in his lungs and that feeling of loneliness and void and utter terror _because everyone left and everyone died and he couldn’t take it anymore_.

«Charles…»

His name again, this time with a pleading nuance, a private subtext between Andrea and him and no one else. They had already been there, <strike>too many times</strike>. In the last years Andrea had had to put up more than once with his silences and his refusal to eat, and Charles felt bad for him, for how difficult it could be to stay by his side, _you shouldn’t be such a mess, Charles, you have no reason to cause a fuss, you’re alive, others aren’t, so don’t complain._ He took a long, shuddering breath, guilt creeping in his mind. He listened to Andrea’s voice in his head, _you need to eat, you have a race tomorrow, this won’t help you, Charles, this never helps,_ and he really wanted to eat, yet he couldn’t force himself to do it, the sour taste of nausea in his throat.

He opened his eyes, suddenly aware of his surroundings. The dining hall of the hotel was quiet, that evening. Most of the tables were occupied by Ferrari and Alfa Romeo staff. The chatting was spare and sombre and couldn’t cover the clattering of cutlery against porcelain plates. He met the concerned eyes of Sebastian and wondered how long the other driver had been staring at him. He looked down at the still untouched food in his plate.

«Excuse me» he muttered, his voice so low that probably no one apart from Andrea actually heard him. He distinctly felt the cold on his nape where the hand of his trainer had been until a couple of seconds before. He stormed out of the room, too conscious of the Ferrari people noticing his exit. Their worry felt like another weight on his lungs, already gasping for air.

_Don’t wanna drown, don’t wanna drown, don’t wanna drown. _

His legs led him through the corridors of the hotel’s last floor to the terrace. He opened the door with trembling hands and stepped out, welcoming the cold breeze of the Belgian evening with a sigh. He reached the metal railing and leaned against it, his unfocused eyes losing themselves on the landscape. The lights of buildings and cars looked like blurry, orange dots. _Breathe and don’t cry, breathe and don’t cry_.

The events of that afternoon felt like a long, heart-wrenching scream in his head. The adrenaline for the pole position, the galvanizing feeling of power in the car, the award in his hands, then the crash. His heart speeding up while he almost ran towards the track, Pierre at his side. They couldn’t get close to the accident scene and maybe it had been for the best. All he could see were ambulances and cranes moving the wrecked cars. The wait for any news in the paddock had felt endless, his panicking mind playing tricks with him, his terror for Anthoine and Juan interrupted by continuous flashbacks of similar moments, similar waits.

Charles bit his lower lip, closing his eyes and trying without success to force older memories in the back of his mind. The way his father had kept telling him that everything was fine, that they would talk after the race, while taking his phone to prevent him reading news about Jules, god forbid seeing any video of the crash. How after the race he had searched for that video anyway, the desperate need to understand what happened, how it was possible, _why_ Jules was at the hospital. He could still feel the nausea and terror. He had never ever watched it again from that day, leaving the room if even a single frame of it was shown on tv.

The sound of the door opening grounded him, memories dissolving in his head.

«Hey»

He felt Sebastian approaching him and leaning against the railing beside him. Their eyes met and he saw the other driver frowning, trying to read his numb expression. He turned and focused his eyes back on the landscape.

«What can I do?»

Charles shook his head, a silent _nothing_ reverberating in the air between them. The silence up there was broken only by the distant sound of cars driving in and out of the hotel’s parking lot. He wished to be surrounded by the chaotic noise of Monaco, then he realised that not even the rumbling of sports cars and the lights of yachts off the coast could calm his troubled mind. Minutes passed, Sebastian watching him closely, Charles keeping his eyes fixed on the landscape.

«Charles.»

«I’m fine» he answered, his face deadpan as he turned and went back inside.

_I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine. _He kept repeating it in his head, the need to lie so strong that he struggled to be honest even with himself. He didn’t know what time it was, the night being punctuated only by his rapid breathing and the turmoil in his mind, voices not shutting up and memories not slowing down. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling fan without actually seeing it, his fists unconsciously gripping the white sheets of his bed.

Anthoine was chatty, it was the first thing he had noticed about him when they had been introduced at a small karting track somewhere in France, before god knows which competition. Their parents had met in the parking lot, still happy families following the steps of their respective children. That’s what they were, at that time, children with flashy overalls, big helmets and even bigger dreams. And Anthoine really wouldn’t shut up about those dreams, rattling off his lap times and upcoming competitions and a mass of information that Charles couldn’t really grasp, already lost as he was in his pre-race flow. That vaguely irritating impression about the French boy had been erased after the race, when they had met again, this time with Pierre and Esteban. A match of table football had been enough to tie their bond, ratifying their little brotherhood of arms.

There was a memory that Charles kept playing in his head. It was a drivers’ parade before a big karting competition. The car slowly moved along the track, the four of them sitting on the backseat, feeling a distinct air of importance looking at their audience. It felt so natural to be there, Anthoine unable to shut up even in that moment and Pierre laughing at some joke Esteban had just told. Looking at them, looking at their shining eyes, Charles had realized maybe for the first time how they were all fighting for the same dream, chasing it along turns of tarmac, visualizing it at night before going to sleep, breathing it every waking hour. And in that moment, their parents cheering for them and their arms touching, the car slowly pulling out to stop, he felt that having his friends sitting on that backseat with him made the trip even better.

Charles bit his lip, taste of blood on his tongue. Eleven years before he was sitting there with Anthoine. They all had the same dream. It was unbelievable how things had turned out just hours before. It felt utterly senseless, terrifyingly random. And he couldn’t refrain himself from asking why. Why he was still there when Anthoine was not, why he could keep on running towards _their_ dream and Anthoine could not, why he was still breathing while others were not. His mind could not conceive all this, could not conceive how they still were sitting together in his memories and yet they could never sit together again.

He felt tears down his cheeks and cursed himself, hastily drying them with his hands. He had already been there, staring at the ceiling, wondering _why_. Every time it felt too much to take, every time it almost was. It happened with Jules, it happened with his father, now it happened with Anthoine and every time it was harder to take the blow, harder to get up, to steady his breathing, to smile and wave, to act like he could take it all, take all their hopes and dreams and expectations on his shoulders and make them proud.

Charles tried to draw a long breath without succeeding. He felt the warm memories of Jules approaching his mind in the muddy dark of the hotel room, too weak to fight them and clutching to the present moment. The jumps from the secluded cliffs of the Riviera on the hot summer days, his hesitation looking down at the sea some meters under them, Jules reassuring him, _just dive in like I do_, before jumping fearless in the water. The way Charles would hold his breath until his friend resurfaced, laughing ecstatic and motioning him to jump, and then the wild sense of fear and adrenaline and freedom and pure, incorruptible happiness when he would dive off the cliff, the splash, water welcoming him, sun shining on his head and Jules’s hand ruffling his damp hair, _see? It was great, wasn’t it? _

He bit his lip, trying with all his strength to resist the sweet and melancholic allure of those flashbacks, his breath hitching in the silence of the room. He could still feel the smoothness of black leather under his fingertips, the brand new HANS-device heavy and precious in his hands, a bold promise of all that would come, a testimony of the rite of passage from karts to single-seaters, an undeniable sign of another step closer to his dreams. He had smiled and looked up, meeting Jules’s eyes. _This will protect your neck when you’ll get your head too big from all the wins and trophies and stuff_, the older had laughed, bantering to hide his emotional and proud eyes. With the passing of years it was always more and more difficult for Charles to fully grasp the memory of Jules’s voice. It felt like trying to hold water in his hands and every time it happened Charles would panic, the terrifying feeling of slowly losing pieces of Jules’s image in his mind. Yet at night, lying in his bed, his head haunted by memories of what had been and hypotheses of what could have become, the voice of his friend was painstakingly clear in his mind. It was comforting, and at the same time it pushed the air out of his lungs.

He focused on the switched-off fan on the ceiling, the desperate need to hold on to material reality and fight the water rising in his mind. He remembered the voice of Lorenzo telling him that their father had been rushed to the hospital, trying to keep calm even if Charles could hear his tone shaking. The nights on the ward, the uncomfortable chairs and the feeling that his whole world had been turned upside down. Then the loss, the void, and the way it was impossible for him to fully articulate it into words, even with Pierre holding him tight and listening to his silence. He tried to explain it to him, once, how it felt, how he felt both heavy and hollow at the same time, how the intensity of his feelings had been attuned to a dark palette. His words had failed him, but Pierre had held him tighter, his rhythmic caresses helping him to calm his breathing.

Water, again. Trying to suffocate him, trying to take him down, to depths he already knew too well. He gasped, his vision becoming blurry, his eyes uncapable to focus, his cheeks dampened by the tears and his lungs trying to fight for oxygen. _Breathe breathe breathe breathe_, he repeated in his mind, hating himself when he failed to do it. He reached for his phone on the nightstand, panic taking over his mind, urging him to call someone, anyone. Pierre, Andrea, Philippe, Lorenzo.

He stopped in his tracks.

He saw their worried stares, heard their words of concern, felt their hands on him, trying to calm him, reassure him, understand why others with time had been able to get up and get on while _he_ simply couldn’t. He felt burning guilt at the idea of being a burden.

He left his phone where it was and focused again on the ceiling.

_Breathe in, breathe out. _

The black armband felt tight on Charles’s arm.

He fought the urge to anxiously fiddle with it and drew a long breath, leaning his head against the wall.

He was sitting huddled up in a corner of his box. Andrea had given him a long hug that morning, not commenting the dark circles under his eyes. He hadn’t asked him anything and had let him be, not suffocating him and yet being only a few steps away from him for the whole morning. _Just in case_. Even now Charles could see him talking with some people on the other side of the box; he wasn’t looking at him, but Charles was sure he had been checking on him regularly for the past ten minutes, since the moment he had sat on the ground in the corner. For some strange reason that quiet presence didn’t trigger his mind and even gave him a placid sense of safety.

It took a while for him to realise that someone was approaching.

Pierre sat beside him, on the face his same tired and distraught look. They sat together, people trying not to look at them and giving them privacy. Charles wouldn’t have cared anyway. He looked at Pierre’s armband, knowing he too felt like it was around his throat, choking him. 

Charles inhaled slowly, trying not to break down again. He closed his eyes and focused on Pierre’s arm against his. When he reopened his eyes he met his friend’s gaze. No words came, no words were needed. They looked at each other for a long time, then Charles nodded to the silent request. _Win it for him._

They stood up, the Toro Rosso driver heading towards his box, the Monégasque straightening his red racing suit. His eyes followed the usual routine of the paddock: mechanics and engineers looking at screens and stats and checking up the car, pr people from the various teams running around with their badge bouncing off, hosts being shown around, in an organized frenzy. It was always the same circus, moved every weekend from one side of the globe to the other. There was something alienating in how everything was being carried on, the same routines repeated for the umpteenth time, yet the faces of everyone were showing the wrecked signs of pain, doubt and incredulity.

Charles walked slowly to his car, fingers caressing its matte red surface. He felt on his skin all the _hours days months years_ of work to get there, to wear on his sleeves the same colour of his heart. He felt the enormity of the dream he was trying to catch, the dream they were all trying to catch. He refused to overanalyse what they were doing, how they were doing it, _why_ they were doing it. He didn’t want to philosophically question the reasons behind his visceral need to race, always better, always _faster_, in spite of risk, in spite of the absurd nonsense of it, in spite of death. His only rock-solid certainty in his life was that this what he had to do. Somehow, the only thing that gave him a sort of balance was the same that kept on taking people away from him.

It felt painful. Nonetheless, it felt right.

Once, when he was a child, Charles almost drowned.

For some strange reason that memory lingered on the gates of his mind while he parked his car in front of the number one board, the roar of the crowd deafening, the thumping of his heart even louder. He didn’t dare to move, he didn’t dare to take off his helmet, his balaclava wet by tears. Tears of pain, exhaustion, relief, adrenaline, and some bittersweet sort of happiness. He could feel the water in his lungs while he stayed there, paralyzed by the red exploding around him. He waited for strong arms, he looked for familiar eyes in the crowd, knowing all too well that he wouldn’t meet any.

He fixed his eyes on that number one board in front of him, the rumble of the two Mercedes approaching his car and stopping beside him. He looked up towards the sky.

For the first time in the last twenty-four hours he felt he could fight his way back to the surface.

He stood up, his ghosts right behind him, the feeling of a path concluding and another beginning right there, right now.

He would race it for all of them. 


End file.
